Weatherization is a program funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, and the concept is to perform work on homes to make homes more energy-efficient.

Of the Recovery Act money, $5 billion was allocated towards the weatherization assistance program nationally. The CEO portion of that in Luzerne County was $6.4 million, and it’s over the 36-month project. So we’ve been able to hire additional staff to do additional jobs to help out more families at a – at a faster rate.

PAUL DUNN: My name is Paul Dunn. I’m an inspector. I’m an auditor.

Heating bills keep on going up, and when we go into homes to weatherize them, we’re reducing their consumption. We’re not only reducing the consumption for elderly people but for younger people that are just moving into homes. We’ll drill a two-and-eighth hole, we’ll shove our hose up as far as possible, we will dense-pack down.

This is a typical home where we could do spray-foam insulation around the rim joist.

Where most of your air comes in your home is from the bottom of your home. It comes in the bottom of your home and goes out the top.

As you can see, this is a good example: A single-family home, no attic insulation at all. She has very high oil bills during the wintertime. What we’ll do is air-seal all the penetrations first, and then we’ll do our attic insulation. And the more funding that there is, the more work that we can do and the more people that we could help.

GLENN CURTIS: I’m Glenn Curtis. I work for CEO. Right now we’re insulating an attic.

One thing most people miss in their home is just simply keeping their thermostat low.

The training is great. We got – (inaudible) – weatherization tactics. They show you how to do the roof fence and the roof, weather strips on the doors, caulking and spacking (ph) and the blower-door diagnostics. Most contractors – you know, you put a door on, but I mean, all that cold air still comes through. We make sure we sweep it. We caulk it. We put a – you know, a sweep on the bottom. I’ve done construction, but weatherization is a whole ‘nother field of construction. I mean, we’re at someplace new every day helping someone new every day, and that’s just a good feeling right there.